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Author Topic: Fine Art print standards / Does anything Matter !!  (Read 2538 times)

deanwork

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Re: Fine Art print standards / Does anything Matter !!
« Reply #20 on: December 21, 2019, 08:34:11 am »


Until they are shown something of quality.


Why not?

Would you always order the most expensive wine on the menu? For wine, as well as prints, the reason is simple: the vast majority of people can’t tell the difference.
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digitaldog

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Re: Fine Art print standards / Does anything Matter !!
« Reply #21 on: December 21, 2019, 09:25:49 am »

"A professional is someone who can do his best work when he doesn't feel like it."-Alistair Cooke
Doesn’t matter what other people who haven’t been shown the difference can’t see!
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petermfiore

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Re: Fine Art print standards / Does anything Matter !!
« Reply #22 on: December 21, 2019, 09:41:21 am »

"A professional is someone who can do his best work when he doesn't feel like it."-Alistair Cooke
Doesn’t matter what other people who haven’t been shown the difference can’t see!
Andrew,

This is the absolute truth...

Peter

digitaldog

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Re: Fine Art print standards / Does anything Matter !!
« Reply #23 on: December 21, 2019, 10:33:53 am »

Andrew,
This is the absolute truth...
Peter
And the other truth; not everyone is or acts like a pro. 😈
And:
"Have no fear of perfection-you'll never reach it".  -Salvador Dali
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Paul Ozzello

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Re: Fine Art print standards / Does anything Matter !!
« Reply #24 on: December 21, 2019, 11:19:51 am »

Why not?

Would you always order the most expensive wine on the menu? For wine, as well as prints, the reason is simple: the vast majority of people can’t tell the difference.

Most of the time the best wine isn't the most expensive.

deanwork

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Re: Fine Art print standards / Does anything Matter !!
« Reply #25 on: December 21, 2019, 11:20:41 am »

“ The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightening and the lightening bug.”


 Mark Twain


 :)
And the other truth; not everyone is or acts like a pro. 😈
And:
"Have no fear of perfection-you'll never reach it".  -Salvador Dali
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Eric Brody

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Re: Fine Art print standards / Does anything Matter !!
« Reply #26 on: December 21, 2019, 12:13:23 pm »

This most interesting thread points up another impressive truth. Comparison is what it's all about. Unless one makes a print on both matte and glossy paper, AND PLACES THEM SIDE BY SIDE, the blacks on both look fine even though when measured, the blacks in the matte print are likely inferior. I've hung in my home and even sold a few matte prints and no one has complained abut the blacks. All lenses look good, UNTIL PRINTS FROM THEM ARE COMPARED SIDE BY SIDE. Between these facts and the fact that content counts, we still revere prints from Edward Weston, Minor White and the other unquestionably great photographers of the twentieth century. These men and women were great artists, regardless of their medium and regardless of the quality of their materials. We should place greater emphasis on the art aspect of our work and less on the technical and I say that even though I am hopelessly enmeshed in the technical. (Perhaps it's because I'm a lousy artist?). Happy holidays to all.
Eric
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digitaldog

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Re: Fine Art print standards / Does anything Matter !!
« Reply #27 on: December 21, 2019, 12:20:13 pm »

Show us.
I can't, at least with a test image I created in the past, duplicated from TIFF, saved as JEPG (quality 10) and then printed on a 3880 with the TIFF TO actually compare. The two look visually identical. Here's what the test image looks like:
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mearussi

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Re: Fine Art print standards / Does anything Matter !!
« Reply #28 on: December 21, 2019, 12:24:23 pm »

This most interesting thread points up another impressive truth. Comparison is what it's all about. Unless one makes a print on both matte and glossy paper, AND PLACES THEM SIDE BY SIDE, the blacks on both look fine even though when measured, the blacks in the matte print are likely inferior. I've hung in my home and even sold a few matte prints and no one has complained abut the blacks. All lenses look good, UNTIL PRINTS FROM THEM ARE COMPARED SIDE BY SIDE. Between these facts and the fact that content counts, we still revere prints from Edward Weston, Minor White and the other unquestionably great photographers of the twentieth century. These men and women were great artists, regardless of their medium and regardless of the quality of their materials. We should place greater emphasis on the art aspect of our work and less on the technical and I say that even though I am hopelessly enmeshed in the technical. (Perhaps it's because I'm a lousy artist?). Happy holidays to all.
Eric
Also, reflective glass is the great equalizer. It makes even the best print on the finest paper look mediocre.
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Rand47

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Re: Fine Art print standards / Does anything Matter !!
« Reply #29 on: December 21, 2019, 12:53:57 pm »

Why not?

Would you always order the most expensive wine on the menu? For wine, as well as prints, the reason is simple: the vast majority of people can’t tell the difference.

Pragmatically, I agree.  Personally, “I’d know” and that’s enough.  And that statement isn’t pride or arrogance - it a sincere desire on my part to make the very best photos and prints I’m capable of making “just because” I value that.  I think it is pretty much like anything else.  If you take the time, effort, skill, expense to make something as well as it can be made - there will be a very limited-to-zero market for it.  Thankfully, there are still craftspeople who embrace this esthetic.  I think the world would be a poorer place if everything was merely “good enough.”   How many of you would choose your camera gear solely from reading “Consumer Reports?”  I find it amusing that we “measurebate” the finest micro-increments of digital cameras’ IQ parameters to justify purchases of equipment, yet argue here that, “Heck the public can’t tell good from bad anyway, so why bother to make anything other than ‘just OK’ prints?”

Cracks me up.

Rand
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Rand47

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Re: Fine Art print standards / Does anything Matter !!
« Reply #30 on: December 21, 2019, 12:56:03 pm »

Now if only the silly usage of giclee with ink jet prints would die.  ;D
Nash and Holbert never approved.

Not to mention the possible unintended double entendre!   8)

Rand
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Simon J.A. Simpson

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Re: Fine Art print standards / Does anything Matter !!
« Reply #31 on: December 24, 2019, 12:56:57 pm »

Now if only the silly usage of giclee with ink jet prints would die.  ;D
Nash and Holbert never approved.

When I first heard the term 'giclée' it made me think of a fruit glaze applied to a French tart (the eatable variety).
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aaronchan

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Re: Fine Art print standards / Does anything Matter !!
« Reply #32 on: December 25, 2019, 03:42:42 am »

I popped into a print shop to get something framed noticed a nicely stitched pano
hanging on the wall, as I entered into a discussion with the shop owner how he did it,
process he used... I mentioned I had some some files to print large and what were his
requirements for the prints to my amazement his reply was:

1. the files can be .jpg "cause it doesn't really matter nobody can notice the difference"
2. the colorspace we print in is sRGB
3. we print 300ppi but I can do 100ppi no problem
4. When I asked about supplying a profile he didn't seem to care

My question is : Is this shop owner correct ? Does the viewer not care ? or not sensitive to know the difference
and furthermore Where does one seek out a Fine Art printer ? :-\

I can't say he is 100% wrong because some might have a particlar workflow that they familiar with and don't like to change.
But here is how I reply to his 4 points (I do fine art and commercial printing and I do provide color managment services for clients)

1. Yes, a good JPG is good enough for print and you won't be able to see any difference with your naked eye.
2. Don't know why he only prints in sRGB. If he is using the printer driver and a proper printer profile, the print application such as Photoshop will make a color conversion from your source profile (sRGB, Adobe RGB) to the destination profile (paper profile) with some sort of rendering intent. Even he uses a RIP, it will do the same thing as well. So whoever say they can only print in sRGB, there must be something going on with his color management. (Maybe he is working with a close loop color management, sort of?)
3. If your original file has less than 300 dpi, you could resample it to 300 with your own techniques. If the file is more than 300dpi, you shouldn't be too worry about it. Any printer can print at any dpi, just a matter of sharpness.
4. You can tell him you want to use the paper icc profile for soft-proof and maybe need some extra color correction before you send him the file. If he still ignores you, I don't think he uses any proper ICC profile at all. Many signage shop does not have proper icc profile for every single material, the reason why is they might use 100 different kinds and what they usually does is use the one that has very close white point to it. He might be doing the samething as well for photo printing.

If you ask him if he is "professional" enough, I would say, yeah, he might know what he's doing, but when it comes to proper color management, maybe so so.

aaron

Garnick

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Re: Fine Art print standards / Does anything Matter !!
« Reply #33 on: December 27, 2019, 11:40:24 am »

Now if only the silly usage of giclee with ink jet prints would die.  ;D
Nash and Holbert never approved.

Andrew -- I could not agree more.  It was simply a put-together word to describe the prints for an artists exhibition back in 1989.  I still occasionally have people asking if I make Giclée prints.  My first response is another question -- "define Giclée".  Of course the customer has no idea what it is and has probably heard it or read it somewhere and decided he/she must have that type of print.  I then try to educate them as to the initial use of the word Giclée and yes, I also squirt inks on a substrate to produce a print.  If the customer is standing in front of me I hand them a copy of the letter Jack Duganne wrote later to describe the situation for which he initially coined the word Giclée.  Here's the last two sentences from that letter - "For better or worse, it was a word and nothing more. It had a beginning in the simple attempt to describe what I thought might be a contribution to the great lexicon of printmaking nomenclature. I have never deviated from that original purpose".

Jack Duganne   
« Last Edit: December 27, 2019, 12:18:30 pm by Garnick »
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petermfiore

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Re: Fine Art print standards / Does anything Matter !!
« Reply #34 on: December 27, 2019, 12:09:38 pm »

Andrew -- I could not agree more.  It was simply a put-together word to describe the prints for an artists exhibition back in 1989.  I still occasionally have people asking if I make Giclée prints.  My first response is another question -- "define Giclée".  Of course the customer has no idea what it is and has probably heard it or read it somewhere and decided he/she must have that type of print.  I then try to educate them as to the initial use of the word Giclée and yes, I also squirt inks on a substrate to produce a print.  If the customer is standing in front of me I hand them a copy of the letter Jack Duganne wrote later to describe the situation for which he initial coined the word Giclée.  Here's the last two sentences from that letter - "For better or worse, it was a word and nothing more. It had a beginning in the simple attempt to describe what I thought might be a contribution to the great lexicon of printmaking nomenclature. I have never deviated from thatoriginal purpose".

Here is the definition of the original french and the french slang...

Giclée   The French verb form gicler meant to spray, spout, or squirt. Duganne settled on the noun giclée, meaning “the thing that got sprayed” and also, in French slang, ejaculation (a connotation Duganne did not know).

glyph

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Re: Fine Art print standards / Does anything Matter !!
« Reply #35 on: December 27, 2019, 07:42:37 pm »

If the customer is standing in front of me I hand them a copy of the letter Jack Duganne wrote later to describe the situation for which he initially coined the word Giclée.[/b][/i]".

If there are no legal or rights concerns, I'd love to see a copy of the letter. I'm a gallery owner and fine art printer, and this is a frequent topic of discussion for me. I've never read Duganne's letter, although I'm very familiar with the giclee origin story.
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Ernst Dinkla

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Re: Fine Art print standards / Does anything Matter !!
« Reply #36 on: December 28, 2019, 07:00:10 am »

No worries here about the connotations of the term Giclée. I never use it for the prints I make but my customers have no clue about the term's connotations anyway (or the process itself :-).  Few French that I work for might have dirty thoughts if it ever falls in a discussion. However in France they do not make much fuss about the connotations either if I take this Wiki as my source of information: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gicl%C3%A9e   Impression Numerique / Jet d'Encre (au service de l'Art) is more common and I think Epson's Digigraphie gained a footholt there more than in The Netherlands.

There is something more grave to think about when you use that term Giclée. With respect to Duganne and Nash as pioneers with a professional approach, the printers they had to use at that time, the Scitex Iris models, had dye inks that were not that stable in time and the prints were quite easily damaged by moisture. Even with the better dye inks made by Ilford and Lyson later on. Museum conservators have learned that in a bad way. I recall that in 2007 some were quite impressed when I put a HP Vivera pigment print proof under the tap and put it on a radiator to dry. It would be a good idea to have Giclée reserved for the products of the Iris printers and possibly the early dye ink Epson's, including third party dye inks used on the Epson's. It was after the Epson 10000/9500 pigment ink period that pigment inks from Epson, HP, Canon really delivered both a usable gamut and a better longevity. The Epson 10000 CF that I had delivered 1950's color in my opinion, I started to use Generations pigment inks to  overcome that. Before that period inkjet inks either had a bad gamut or lacked longevity. Even the Iris got some third party pigment inks at some point in time. Must have been a disaster on that machine as it was already a hard to maintain printer. Interesting history here: http://spectrumimaging.com/fineart_history.html

Terms like that tend to loose their goal fast in this industry. I see Piëzography used for color printing as well these days and more odd, the prints being made on thermal head printers. I went for pigment prints, a more general term. One may argue that that term was used for an alternative photographic process too but at least it shares the pigment aspect of that process.


Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
March 2017 update, 750+ inkjet media white spectral plots

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deanwork

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Re: Fine Art print standards / Does anything Matter !!
« Reply #37 on: December 28, 2019, 09:05:19 am »


I agree with Ernst. The primary reason I wouldn’t want to be associated with Giclee terminology is that they are some of the least durable prints ever made in the history of printmaking. I mean I have lots of Epson 1270 dye/pigment hybrid  prints on cotton media in dark storage from that era that look as good as the day they were printed. In comparison I have a client who spent a lot of money on large Iris prints on cotton rag  at the same time that were in dark storage, low humidity that we had to throw away. They were all totally blue or cyan and even the black and white work, which was cmyk of course was just as bad or worse. And the poor printers who invested in that technology spent a small fortune in hardware and constant software tech support, not to mention most of the ink never reached the paper.

Iris prints were really beautiful and unique though and what inspired me to be a printmaker. It blended ideas of painting and photographic color in ways I always dreamed about. But it became one of those dead end technologies that inspired a revolution but not something one would want to associated with today. As much as we complain about this or that quirk or limitation of the tech we have now,  when we look back 20 years it’s a whole new world we have now that most people take for granted.

John




No worries here about the connotations of the term Giclée. I never use it for the prints I make but my customers have no clue about the term's connotations anyway (or the process itself :-).  Few French that I work for might have dirty thoughts if it ever falls in a discussion. However in France they do not make much fuss about the connotations either if I take this Wiki as my source of information: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gicl%C3%A9e   Impression Numerique / Jet d'Encre (au service de l'Art) is more common and I think Epson's Digigraphie gained a footholt there more than in The Netherlands.

There is something more grave to think about when you use that term Giclée. With respect to Duganne and Nash as pioneers with a professional approach, the printers they had to use at that time, the Scitex Iris models, had dye inks that were not that stable in time and the prints were quite easily damaged by moisture. Even with the better dye inks made by Ilford and Lyson later on. Museum conservators have learned that in a bad way. I recall that in 2007 some were quite impressed when I put a HP Vivera pigment print proof under the tap and put it on a radiator to dry. It would be a good idea to have Giclée reserved for the products of the Iris printers and possibly the early dye ink Epson's, including third party dye inks used on the Epson's. It was after the Epson 10000/9500 pigment ink period that pigment inks from Epson, HP, Canon really delivered both a usable gamut and a better longevity. The Epson 10000 CF that I had delivered 1950's color in my opinion, I started to use Generations pigment inks to  overcome that. Before that period inkjet inks either had a bad gamut or lacked longevity. Even the Iris got some third party pigment inks at some point in time. Must have been a disaster on that machine as it was already a hard to maintain printer. Interesting history here: http://spectrumimaging.com/fineart_history.html

Terms like that tend to loose their goal fast in this industry. I see Piëzography used for color printing as well these days and more odd, the prints being made on thermal head printers. I went for pigment prints, a more general term. One may argue that that term was used for an alternative photographic process too but at least it shares the pigment aspect of that process.


Met vriendelijke groet, Ernst

http://www.pigment-print.com/spectralplots/spectrumviz_1.htm
March 2017 update, 750+ inkjet media white spectral plots
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Garnick

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Re: Fine Art print standards / Does anything Matter !!
« Reply #38 on: December 28, 2019, 08:28:06 pm »

"If there are no legal or rights concerns, I'd love to see a copy of the letter. I'm a gallery owner and fine art printer, and this is a frequent topic of discussion for me. I've never read Duganne's letter, although I'm very familiar with the giclee origin story".

This is the letter below:
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